Forum:Should we have redirects from former titles?
The issue here is weather we should have redirects from former titles? This discussion is, to some extent, a contuation of --Emmette Hernandez Coleman 21:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC) *'Support' per the reasons I listed on the July 9, 2009 User talk:Jrofeta#Suppression of redirects.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 21:37, 9 July 2009 (UTC) ::In addition, by not having these redirects we risk breaking peoples bookmarks, and links from outside S.T.E.U.. For more information on this see Memoryalpha:Help:Redirect#Renamings and merges, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect?.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 20:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC) Looking back through the move log, in most of the recent cases where Jono has suppressed a redirect, it was because the original link was either a misspelling or improperly formatted. Therefore, no redirect would be needed because the page with the typo should be edited to link to the new page with the correct spelling. So, I see no problem in Jono's actions. Redirects should of course be kept when there is a commonly used alternate title for a page -- like Star Trek: New Voyages redirected to Star Trek: Phase II, or James Tiberius Kirk to James T. Kirk. But why on earth would we keep mistakes? -- 03:54, 12 July 2009 (UTC) :I listed some reasons why we would keep mistakes on the July 9, 2009 User talk:Jrofeta#Suppression of redirects, but that section of the page is somewhat cluttered, so I'll amend my vote (for lack of a better term) with reasons we, in my opinion we should keep mistakes. I want to make something very clear. Jono is not on trial. Jono did nothing wrong. He had a reasonable viewpoint, and acted on it in a way in a way that was reasonable, not clearly disruptive, broke no rule, and did not go against consensus.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 22:05, 12 July 2009 (UTC) ::Fine, you say you think we should keep redirects leftover from correcting a mistake. I gathered that. I'll ask again: why do you think we should keep them? That seems highly illogical. The only reasons you have on Jono's talk page, that I can find in all that, are because it might break links in edit summaries and old versions of pages. I fail to see why that should be a concern, because people don't habitually go through old versions of pages for links to other pages, and edit summaries do not actually link at all. -- 22:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC) :::There can be links in edit summaries, click here for an example. you can put links in edit summaries the same way you can put links anywhere else on the site, with double brackets.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 20:37, 15 July 2009 (UTC) ::::You're correct; I must have been thinking of something else. That still doesn't answer my question: why would we, or any encyclopedia, decide to keep typos and formatting mistakes? -- 20:40, 15 July 2009 (UTC) :::::These are redirects, not article text, so the normal reasons against typos and formatting mistakes don't apply. My main reason for wanting these redirects is, by not having these redirects we risk breaking peoples bookmarks, and links from outside S.T.E.U.. For more information on this see Memoryalpha:Help:Redirect#Renamings and merges, and Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Redirect#When should we delete a redirect?. :::::About edit summaries,in the example edit summery: "moved USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) to USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) (Star Trek: Renaissance) (There is another Enterprise-F, mine'USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) (Sagan-class)'''". "USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) (Sagan-class)" is the former title of USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-F) (Sagan class), but because there is no redirect from the former title to the current one, the bold red-link in the edit summery does not work. The bold red-link is an invitation to to create an article, but it would be a duplicate article. Edit summaries can not be changed, so the link can not be modified to work. :::::Re "People don't habitually go through old versions of pages for links to other pages''": That's a good point. I still think it's worth keeping these redirects so links on old versions of pages will work, but I don't feel as strongly about it, though I never felt that strongly about it in the first place--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 03:42, 16 July 2009 (UTC) ::::::As with the old versions of pages, people also don't generally create new pages from edit summaries which are really only visible on and in the page's history. Redlinks there also don't add to the Wanted pages count, so I'm not concerned about them. In fact, in that case, those redlinks can serve to highlight the initial error, so that it won't be repeated. We want to avoid and correct mistakes, not keep them around to confuse people and look any more unprofessional than necessary. ::::::Does anyone else want to weigh in on this?-- 03:59, 16 July 2009 (UTC) I agree with Tim that the risk of someone going through a page history and creating a duplicate article is pretty low. Plus we're always going to get redlinks in the summary from normal page deletions. As for bookmarks, there might be more chance of some following a bookmark and creating a duplicate due to suppress redirect as it doesn't leave a trail in the deletion log. A simple edit to MediaWiki:Noarticletext to mention that the page might have been moved and a link to the move log would further decrease the chances of a duplicate creation. – 07:18, 16 July 2009 (UTC) :Jono's idea would probably mostly address my concerns.--Emmette Hernandez Coleman 09:33, 16 July 2009 (UTC)